This post was published long before the Mists of Pandara Expansion.
The tips and techniques explained here may be outdated.

Eenie Meanie Miney Moe

So.. you’re the raid leader.. it’s 15 minutes to raid time.. you have 15 people signed up for a 10 man raid how do you decide who to bench?
– Take the people who most need the gear upgrades. And reward the under-performers who haven’t bothered to gear themselves outside of the raid setting.
– Take the people who haven’t recently been able to go on raids. And reward people for sporatically showing up to raid.
– Take whoever signed up first. And reward whoever happened to be online when the raid was posted.

Seriously.. how do you do it? You have to bench someone.. how do you choose who to bench without getting a guild full of butthurt people?

My guild, West Kingdom, is facing this question now. The guild leadership has opened the question to the guild membership. I know what I think should happen.. but I’m interested in what -you- think Internets.

10 comments to Eenie Meanie Miney Moe

We do “first come, first served”. It works pretty well. I think there are a lot less hurt feelings because it’s a clear rule that everyone understands and you can’t really claim favoritism (I guess except for the RL who is creating it gets to automatically come, but I’ve never had anyone complain that the RL is planning to come… I could totally see someone doing that though, right before I gag them with my Imp).
.-= Fulguralis´s last blog ..On Lifetapping, Extended Raid IDs, and the Emblem Changes =-.

My question is… do you have to bench someone the whole night? Obviously it depends on the group dynamics of who signed up… but would it be possible to split the raid time and just swap people in half way through the raid?

Sometimes this is beneficial… because you have more experienced players who may not want to kill the early bosses and some undergeared players who may not be ready for the later bosses.

By bringing the undergeared for the first few fights and then at a set time bringing in the better geared players you take the lesser of 2 evils which would be benching someone for the entire time.

1> Identify the overage areas first (typically too many DPS, but not always)
2> Fill the other slots
3> Ask for volunteers to sit out
4> Take highest-ranking members for progression content, (where rank is based on attendance/performance) less-geared/attendanced members for farm content
Haven’t had too many problems so far.
.-= Alaron´s last blog ..Trial of the Champion – expanded strat =-.

I used to select on performance. Better gear does not mean better player. Now, in my former guild, we had a lot of people who only played in the evenings due to work, so pre-gearing was hard for them, but some of those really performed well with sub-par gear.

So, I did bring the player, not the gear. And to be honest, most ‘all-day’-playing people (having time for 10-mans and so on), where really nicely geared, but also a pain-in-the-ass, because of their ‘leet’ gear.
.-= Gowron´s last blog ..of The Exodar =-.

You cannot please all of the people all of the time. This is a truism in every facet of life and gaming. My advice is that no matter which you choose, know that someone is going to be upset about it, and keep that in mind next week. “Who did I bench last time?” Not “Who didn’t go last week?” If you only look at who didn’t go, you start looking at people who didn’t show up and why reward them? So, “Who did I bench?” tends to be where I start. Then I look at “Who warned me ahead of time that they wouldn’t be able to make it?” and then, “Who just didn’t show up?”

No matter what you do, someone’s going to get upset. Bench Player X because he has almost every item he needs from the place, and the item he’s gone 5 months without seeing drops? He’s going to get pissed. I say to him…. Too bad. That’s life. Deal with it. We just upgraded the raid, and that’s more important in the long run. The raid is more important than any single individual within it.
.-= Maerdred´s last blog ..That stupid orc… =-.

I used to be in a guild that managed this type of situation using a guild member and giving them a special guild rank called “The Guild asshole” and his sole role was making these hard decisions. This is not someone just anyone can do, our guild asshole had a lot of knowledge about the game, classes, boss fights, ect… By doing this people started to up their game so that you would get drafted into a somewhat sure spot in raids.

Fairest:
- Who can you not go without? fill those spots (tanks, healers, cc)
- Roll

Best performance:
- Who can you not go without?
- Who will make the raid go better?

Social:
- Who can you not go without?
- Who has had good attendance?

My way:
- Who do we need?
- Which content will we work on?
- Which players/toons fit best with this content? (my group is currently at the point that we can bring any of our 10 man and do what we have to do luckily)
- The other spots, who has been there a lot who hasn’t? Roll? Depending on the situation.

Most important is that your raiders understand how and why certain people go, and others do not, whichever way you have for selecting people. And that it is as consistent and fair as you can possibly get it.
.-= Shy´s last blog ..Your fault, our fault, my fault =-.

Be glad that you have a raid that all 15 people sign-up and show-up, not worry about those offended that they got second rung. My guild is rebuilding after a major exodus and my last 10 man invite, garnered 4 people. WOOHOO! Daily Heroics.
.-= Elkagorasa´s last blog ..My Shiny New Shoes =-.

We are a fairly casual guild, and a variation of the ‘First come, First served’ approach works well for us.
1. Everyone who wants to raid has to sign up on the calendar.
2. Tanks and heals are confirmed in advance (RL is main heals, and we only have 2-3 tanks, so there isn’t often collision)
3. At raid time, we call for invites in main guild chat and first whispers fill the remaining slots.

While no system is going to be complaint-free, as long as you are *consistent* you should be fine